Another week where adult fiction was the only category to post an increase resulted in unit sales of print books falling 8% last week compared to the week ended October 9, 2021 at outlets that report to NPD BookScan.
Juvenile nonfiction sales dropped 15.1% with the large games/activities/hobbies subcategory posting the largest decline at 25.4%. Juvenile fiction sales fell 11.4% with the subcategories of general fiction and history/sports/people/places both falling by more than 17% from last year. The drop in the juvenile fiction segment came despite good showings by two new releases. Build the Unicorn by Nancy Dickerman sold over 63,000 copies, landing it in first place on the category list. Busy Betty by Reese Witherspoon was in fourth place on the list, selling over 14,000 copies in its first week on sale.
Sales of adult nonfiction dropped 11.4% in the week despite solid first week sales by a number of new books. Maggie Haberman’s Confidence Man was #1, selling nearly 57,000 copies. Other new titles that had a good week were Lighter by Yung Pueblo, which sold over 37,000 copies, and The World of the End by David Jeremiah, which sold nearly 17,000 copies. Last year at this time, The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music by Dave Grohl was #1 on the nonfiction list, selling about 62,000 copies.
Adult fiction sales increased 2% over 2021. The top-selling new titles were Righteous Prey by John Sandford and Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult, which sold about 30,000 and 27,000 copies, respectively. The top category seller in the week was It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover, which sold just over 44,000 copies.
Both young adult segments had declines in the week, with fiction down 3.5% and nonfiction dropping 11.6%.
